E 
207 



.K74S7 MERAL 

-™JMRY 
KNOX 




I 'S FAMILY 

HiS MANOR 

HIS MANOR HOUSE 

AND HIS GUESTS 







Class_JL_£_ 
Bonk. ^ ; 






ERAL HENRY_KNOX 






HJ_S_JlAj>1_Lk-Y 
HM_S MANOR 

HISJVIAT^^ 

AND HIS GUESTS 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE 12MO CLUB. ROCKLAND. MAINE 

MARCH 3. 1902 

BY LEWIS FREDERICK STARRETT 



tf 












ROCKLAND, MAINE 

PUBLISHED BY HUSTON'S BOOKSTORE 

1902 



S 3 1 ^ I 



BOOKS AND ARTICLES CONSULTED IN 
PREPARATION. 

Eaton's Histories of Thomaston and 
Warren. 

Henry Knox. By Francis S. Drake. Roston, 
1873. The materials in this book are stated to 
have been mainly derived from the original 
letters and papers in possession of the N. E. 
Historic al and Genealogical Society to which 
they were presented by Admiral Henry K. 
Thatcher, Knox's grandson, and which All 56 
large portfolios. 

Henry Knox. By Noah Brooks. New York, 
1900. 

Article by Joseph W. Porter, of Bangor, in 
the Bangor Historical Magazine, first quarterly 
number, 1890.— " Memoir Gen. Henry Knox." 
In connection with this article is published 
the full text of the funeral address delivered 
by Hon. Samuel Thatcher of Warren; also of 
Gen. Knox's will. 

Williamson's History of Maine. 

Article " Louis Philippe in the United 
States." by Jane Marsh Parker, in the Century 
for September, 1901. 

Hawthorne's American Note Books. Vol.1. 

The Knox House. By Mary P. Thacher, 
(Now Mrs. Higginson.) 

The Cyclopedias. 

For the two poems included I am indebted 
to Mrs. Catherine P. Fowler of Poughkeepsie, 
N. Y„ great-grand-daughter of Gen. Knox. 




Major General Henry Knox 

From the portrait bj Gilbert Stuart. This portrait, which hung "n the walls 
.it "Montpelier," "ii the disposal of the effects passer) into possession of the 
citj "i Boston and i" mm in the Museum <>(' Fine Art". The mutilation of 
Knox's left band Iscleverlj concealed hj the artist. 



GENERAL HENRY KNOX 



THE ambition to be a large land- 
ed proprietor is one which has 
had a great fascination for men 
of affairs. When it has been 
gratified perhaps the gratifica- 
tion has afforded as much pleasure as 
has resulted from the gratification of 
ambitions generally, but it has made 
its possessor its victim often enough to 
have originated a significant compound 
word — land-poor. Perhaps to nobody 
in Maine, did this word ever apply bet- 
ter than to the great man who when he 
lived here was easily the most distin- 
guished citizen in the district which 
was to be the state; and who gave his 
name to the county in which we live. 

Doubtless Knox would have been 
happier in the years that followed his 
retirement from public to private life, 
if the ambition of which I speak had 
let him, or he had let it, alone, but in 
that case, doubtless also, he would not 
have been our General Knox. 



"We can conceive one reason why this 
ambition appealed to the mind of Knox. 
We know that when he married into 
the family of the secretary of the royal 
governor of His Majesty's province of 
Massachusetts, the alliance was an ex- 
ceedingly distasteful one to that fam- 
ily. This same secretary was at the 
time of the marriage, partly in his 
wife's but to twice as great an extent 
in his own right, owner of a controlling 
interest in a tract of land larger than 
some of the principalities of Europe. It 
was unexplored land to be sure, and 
probably neither he nor his had ever 
seen any of it, but its importance in 
the family tradition, was very likely 
not lessened for that reason. When the 
irony of fate made it possible for the 
interloper to acquire the sole proprie- 
torship of this same manor, we can 
conceive that he may have had enough 
of human nature in his composition to 
have felt a certain satisfaction in the 
acquisition. 



General Waldo and the Waldo Patent 



If without the Waldo Patent we 
should not have had Knox, it is worth 
our while to consider how the patent 
came to be. 

In 1620, the great Plymouth Compa- 
ny which had chartered the pilgrim 
colony which took its name, granted to 
Thomas Leverett of Boston, England, 
and to John Beauchamp of London, 
Gentlemen, something over half a mil- 
lion acres of land. The exact bounda- 



ries are uncertain but it is certain that 
we are on one of the acres. It is doubt- 
ful whether Beauchamp even crossed 
the ocean but his name got dropped on 
a pretty point we know of where it has 
stayed. Leverett got as near as Bos- 
ton and his name was dropped on an- 
other pretty point, but not so firmly but 
that w T hen Jameson settled there it 
came to be called Jameson's Point, by 
which name it was known until a few 



IO 



General Henry Knox 



years ago we rechristened it Bay Point. 
Leverett would not have been a bad 
name for the point to have kept, for it 
would have preserved to us the name 
of one of the original patentees, and of 
his grandson who was president of 
Harvard, to whom the patent descend- 
ed. Once during my incumbency of the 
clerkship of the courts, a party to a 
law suit started his title with this old 
grant to Beauchamp and Leverett, and 
in preparing the case for the Law 
Court it was enjoined upon me to see 
that it was represented in all the 
quaintness of its spelling and verbiage. 
A century after the grant was made 
its validity was questioned, and, if 
valid, there was more or less doubt as 
to the land covered by it. It was not 
the only patent of royal granting at 
first, second or third hand, and where 
lands were parcelled out in tracts, 
measuring hundreds of miles on a side, 
and no one concerned had been within 
a thousand miles of the location it is 
not strange that there should have 
been conflict of claim. Jonathan Wal- 
do, a Boston merchant, had acquired 
an interest in the patent. He had a 
son named Samuel, then a little rising 
thirty years of age, the type of man to- 
day called a hustler. This son got the 
proprietors to make him their agent, 
went to London, interviewed the great 
ones, and made so good an impression 
that he got the patent confirmed and 
its bounds somewhat definitely denned. 
His associates were so well pleased 
with his success that he acquired the 
title to most of the patent, and with 
the exception of the territory now cov- 
ered by the towns of Camden, Rock- 
port, Hope and Appleton, which he set 
off to his associates, he had all the ti- 
tle that royal authority could give to 
the land between Penobscot and Mus- 
congus Bays on the shore, keeping its 



width to a not clearly defined line 
somewhere near where Bangor now 
stands. Henceforth the words Mus- 
congus and Lincolnshire as applied to 
the patent (the latter given because 
Leverett was a Lincolnshire man) were 
dropped, and we read of the Waldo Pa- 
tent. Mrs. Knox was the granddaugh- 
ter of Samuel Waldo. 

The facts so far related I get main- 
ly from Eaton. He was exceedingly 
careful and painstaking in the verifi- 
cation of his statements. Years before 
he wrote his histories he commenced 
the collection of his material. When a 
representative from Warren to the leg- 
islature at Boston, which he was at 
several different times, he improved 
the opportunity to examine all access- 
ible records, he was able to command 
in his researches the services of his 
friend, Sibley, the librarian of Har- 
vard, with whom he corresponded as 
long as he lived, and he was painstak- 
ing and discriminating in preserving 
the local testimony and traditions. Ev- 
erybody who has written on Knox has 
availed himself of the results of 
his labors, appropriating the best of 
his anecdotes, and some have given 
him more or less credit, referring tohim 
with a bit of patronage as "a 
local historian," "the quaint old town 
historian," or some such phrase. Mr. 
Brooks has placed all lovers of Knox's 
memory under large obligation for 
what he has done to throw new light 
on his career, and for reproducing 
the valuable portraits and other illus- 
trations not easily accessible, but it is 
a little difficult to forgive him, with 
Eaton's work at his hand, for so gross- 
ly misstating the history of the pa- 
tent. 

He states (page 234) that Waldo 
was in command of the forces raised 
by Massachusetts for the reduction of 



General Henry Knox 



ii 



Louisburg in 1745, and prayed the king 
for a grant of wild land in payment of 
his services, which grant, not made in 
his lifetime, was issued to his heirs 
after his death and was the Waldo Pa- 
tent. He might have found in Eaton's 
Thomaston, Vol.1, Page 45, a full record 
of a deed granted by Waldo out of the 
patent ten years before Louisburg 
was taken. Waldo's name is men- 
tioned in connection with the expedi- 
tion by Williamson and Eaton, but in 
no other account of it which I have 
read. The reason undoubtedly is that 
they were treating of Maine matters, 
and Waldo was the commander of the 
Maine contingent, not, as Brooks seems 
to have supposed, of the whole body of 
Massachusetts troops which comprised 
five-sixths of the whole force. He 
doubtless served honorably, though 
without previous military training, and 
at least he gained from the expedition 
his military title. 

We of this locality have especial rea- 
son to remember the name of Waldo, 
from the fact of his having been the 
first burner of lime in this vicinity, as 
well as from the influence which he 
had upon the settlement of south-cen- 
tral Maine. For the last eighteen years 
of his life his whole endeavors were di- 
rected to the development of the terri- 
tory embraced in his patent. He had a 
skill in writing prospectuses which, 
had he lived at a later day, would 
have commended him to the favorable 
consideration of a great railroad com- 
pany with a land grant. He induced 
Scotchmen, Scotch-Irishmen and Ger- 
mans, all good stock for colonists, to 
come hither. His name is perpetuated 
in the name of the town which his Ger- 
man settlers founded, Waldoborough. 
He died in 1759, the famous year of 
Wolfe's victory, to which event, had he 
lived to see it, as a loyal subject of 



King George, and an enthusiastic col- 
onist under his flag, he would doubtles 
and justly have attached a large sig- 
nificance. His death occurred within 
the limits of what is now the town of 
Brewer, he having accompanied the 
military expedition up the Penobscot, 
which located the fort at the point 
which has ever since borne the name 
'Fort Point." He does not seem to 
have been attached to this expedition 
in a military capacity and was doubt- 
less actuated largely by his personal in- 
terest in accompanying it. Tradition 
says that his last words were, "Here 
are my bounds,' referring presumably 
to the northerly bounds of the patent, 
and that he had no sooner spoken 
them than he fell dead of an apoplectic 
stroke. They brought his remains 
down to their newly built fort in the 
vicinity of which they buried him. His 
grave was unmarked and its location 
was soon lost. Sixty-eight years after 
his death, the Legislature of Maine, 
thinking, perhaps, that he deserved 
some monument, and being about to 
incorporate a new county which in- 
cluded the soil in which his remains 
rested, and all or nearly all of the ter- 
ritory in which had once been covered 
by his patent, gave to it the name of 
Waldo county. 

Five years after Waldo's death, his 
eldest son, Samuel, who by right of 
primogeniture inherited two shares of 
his estate, sold these two shares to 
Flucker, Mrs. Knox's father. The oth- 
er three shares descended one to Mrs. 
Flucker.one to her brother Francis and 
one to her sister, Mrs. Winslow, but 
it does not appear that any particular 
acts of proprietorship were exercised 
by anybody after Waldo's death until 
Knox's accession. Flucker presumably 
left Boston when his master, Gage, did, 
the removal being precipitated by the 



12 



General Henry Knox 



persuasive influence of the 12, 18 and 24 
pounders that his rebel son-in-law had 
brought down on ox-sleds from old 
Fort Ti. In the company of loyal- 
ists who then left were probably all 
the descendants of the old proprietor, 
Waldo, except that one who had es- 
poused the people's cause and shared 
her patriot husband's cares and to 



some extent the dangers, like the true 
wife she was. A year later she wrote 
to her husband that she had learned 
that "papa" was continuing to draw 
his salary as secretary, and probably 
he was allowed to do so as long as a 
peg remained to hang a hope on that 
the time might come when he could go 
back to earn it. 



Knox Comes to Thomaston 



Knox having served his country no- 
bly during the war, the period of the 
establishment of the new government, 
and the first administration under the 
Constitution, retired from Washing- 
ton's cabinet at the close of 1794. For 
morathan three years previous he had 
been securing the title tothepatent.and 
perhaps the representatives of the 
family over seas may have felt that it 
was convenient to have a patriot in its 
ranks when confiscation came to be the 
order of the day. 

In 1793, Knox commenced the build- 
ing of his mansion. Eaton has pre- 
served for us the name of the archi- 
tect, Ebenezer Dunton of Boston. Af- 
ter the mansion was built Dunton left 
the place, deserting his wife, who be- 
came the town's first milliner. But, if 
an unfaithful husband, he must have 
been a good architect. Enough of us 
still living remember the symmetry of 
the mansion, and the pictures which 
have been preserved testify it to those 
who cannot remember. Eaton 

who must have seen it in all its beauty, 
for he came to this locality two years 
before Knox died, — writing while it was 
still standing, says: "Nothing is now 
to be seen of the piazzas, balconies, 
balustrades and other ornaments of 
the mansion." These seem all to have 
disappeared before the first picture 
was made, but the fine proportions 



that the pictures reveal are a guaranty 
that the skill which designed them 
knew how to put the balconies, and the 
like where they belonged, and make 
them what they should be. $50,000 the 
mansion cost says Eaton. Drake, and 
Brooks after him, puts it at $15,000, and 
say that the papers of Knox show it 
at that amount. There was an im- 
mense amount of fine work and skilful 
carving and almost every thing had to 
be done by hand, and much that wan 
beyond the skill of the country at that 
time to make must have been imported 
and while Eaton's figures are doubt- 
less too large the other sum named we 
venture to think is considerably too 
small. At Knox's death house and fur- 
niture were appraised at $42,656. 

It seems likely that the house was 
built in faith of what the great landed 
possessions were to yield, and this be- 
ing an uncertain quantity it is not 
strange that it proved to be a disap- 
pointing one. That Knox had faith in 
Maine land is shown by the fact that 
he had been before he acquired the 
Waldo Patent the promoter of even a 
larger land scheme, to wit, the pur- 
chase of 2,000,000 acres on the upper 
Kennebec and in Hancock and Wash- 
ington counties for $265,000, which he 
and his associates sold to Hon. William 
Bingham of Philadelphia from whom It 
was known as the Bingham Purchase. 



General Henry Knox 



13 



Knox may have realized something 
from this sale. If he did he may have 
had ready money to put into the con- 
struction of the house. The breaking 
out of the war spoiled his book busi- 
ness and during and after the war 
when he was serving his country at a 
large expense for a small salary he 
could not have saved much. The fact 
that he was able to negotiate so large 
purchases shows that he had large 
credit and his after experience makes 
it more than probable that it was on 
that same credit that he started his 
operations. 

Mr. Bingham was at one time U. S. 
Senator from Pennsylvania- and there 
was a very close intimacy between him 
and Knox and between the two fami- 
lies. Eaton says that it was because 
of the French taste imbibed from Mrs. 
Bingham that Mrs. Knox named the 
mansion Montpelier. This intimacy 
was the cause of at least one of the 
eminent visitors of whom we shall 
speak, and perhaps more than one, 
having been drawn thither. 

Knox and his family started from 
Philadelphia for Thomaston, June 1, 
1795, in a sloop which had evidently 
been sent from here, or being that way 
in course of business was chartered for 
the removal of the distinguished party. 
It could scarcely have afforded sump- 
tuous accommodations, but the Gener- 
al had roughed it in the army, and 
Mrs. Knox though one of the most 
highly bred and accomplished ladies in 
the land, had shared some of his pri- 
vations on occasion. How long they 
were compelled to undergo the discom- 
forts of the trip we do not know, but 
we know something of what the man- 
sion was and we know the location. 
Its natural beauty must have been 
great, and we may fairly assume that 
what had been done had enhanced 



without in any way marring it, and 
can well believe that after the neces- 
sarily wearisome journey, the new 
place was fully appreciated by the 
party who had come to it to make it 
their home. Just when they arrived 
we do not know but the mansion was 
opened with the extension of the most 
gracious hospitality for whomsoever 
cared to come and partake thereof, on 
July 4, 1795. 

Gen. Knox was very much liked here 
from the start. Mrs. Knox did not 
succeed in pleasing the ladies whom 
very likely she did not understand, 
and who, I am very sure, did not un- 
derstand her. She had been reared in 
close relations to the family of a royal 
governor, and had better opportunities 
of learning what were the requirements 
of the best society of the times, than 
most, perhaps than any other of our 
leading ladies, and her abilities and ac- 
complishments had been given to the 
service of the young republic in the es- 
tablishment of the social order as it 
was represented in the leading circles 
of its capital city, which in large meas- 
ure determined similar conditions in 
other cities, and influenced them 
throughout the land. After she came 
here we are told that she was kind and 
courteous to those whom she employed, 
and the little girl whose task it was 
to carry the supplies of butter for the 
table of the mansion, has left it to be of 
record that the great lady had always 
a pleasant word for her. I do not 
know whether any of the nine children 
who died in childhood were living 
when they came here. The oldest 
daughter Lucy, who became Mrs. 
Thatcher, was a young lady of 19; the 
spoiled child Master Henry, who 
amended his wayward courses too late 
in life to be of service to the world, 
was a boy of 15, and the youngest child 



'4 



General Henry Knox 



Caroline, who became Mrs. Swan and 
afterward Mrs. Holmes, and of whom 
the universal testimony Is that she was 



the most gracious, charming and lov- 
able of ladles, was a little miss of four. 



An Eminent French Nobleman and Philanthropist 



The first famous visitor to be men- 
tioned is the Duke de La Rochefou- 
cauld Liancourt. He figures in histo- 
ry as a statesman and especially as a 
philanthropist. At Montpelier Knox 
and not he seems to have sustained the 
latter role for Eaton preserves the re- 
mark which he is credited with making 
while there — "I have three dukedoms 
in my hand and not a whole coat on 
my back." Knox had met him at 
Philadelphia, probably at Mr. Bing- 
ham's, which seems to have been a 
place where distinguished Frenchmen 
who came to Philadelphia resorted. He 
came to Montpelier twice, in 1795 and 
again in 1796. He was three years 
Knox's senior, 48 in 1795. When he was 
22 he went to England and on his re- 
turn established a model farm for the 
instruction of his tenantry. We hear 
so much of the abject condition of the 
peasantry in France before the Revo- 
lution that it is refreshing to find one 
great lord who was interested to im- 
prove it. Afterward he established a 
school of arts and trades which devel- 
oped into a permanent establishment. 
After the Bastile was destroyed he was 
for a time president of the National 
Assembly, which shows us that though 
holding a high hereditary position he 



sympathized with the popular move- 
ments. When it became apparent that 
the king's life was in danger he used 
his influence to save it and in conse- 
quence had to fly to save his own, 
which was the occasion of his coming 
to America. He returned to Europe in 
1799 and published an account of his 
travels, which appears to have attract- 
ed a good deal of attention. Eaton 
quotes from the London Edition, 1799. 
I find the statement in the American 
Cyclopedia that it was published in five 
volumes in Paris in 1800, from which it 
may be inferred that he published in 
London, in English, in 1799, and the 
next year in Paris, in French. Among 
the matters in which he is stated to 
have taken an active interest are men- 
tioned the introduction of vaccination; 
the establishment of savings banks; 
the abolition of the slave trade; and 
the suppression of lotteries and gaming 
houses. He received honors both from 
Napoleon and Louis XVIII., though 
the ministers of the latter deposed him 
from his offices because of his liberal 
sentiments. It is of interest to us to 
find that such a man was enough in- 
terested in Knox and his family to 
come to Thomaston twice in success- 
ive years to visit them. 



A Party of Distinguished Visitors 



At page 230 of his Vol. I, Eaton puts 
in a foot-note an account of a visit to 
Montpelier, which is one of the most 
interesting items he anywhere records. 
It has been a question with me why he 
relegated it to a foot-note. I have 



wondered if he felt somewhat in doubt 
as to its authenticity, at first writing, 
or if it came to his knowledge too late 
to have a place in his text. He states 
it on the authority of Mrs. Thatcher 
and others whom he does not name. 



General Henry Knox 



*5 



Mrs. Thatcher lived until 1854, and was 
a young lady of 21 at the time of the 
event narrated in the foot-note, to wit, 
in the summer in 1796. The visiting 
party included some notable people. 
Probably the reason of its coming was 
that Mr. Bingham desired to look over 
his Maine lands. There is every reason 
to suppose that Maine was as much 
more comfortable in the heat of sum- 
mer than Philadelphia a hundred years 
ago as now, and it was natural that 
the senator's family should desire to 
accompany him, and should take with 
them their guests. Besides his wife 
and two daughters, his immediate fam- 
ily consisted of his wife's sister, Miss 
Willing, who, the foot-note says, was 
afterwards engaged to Louis Philippe. 
The young gentlemen of the party 
were all foreigners.one a titled French- 
man, Viscount Troailles, brother-in-law 
to the great Lafayette, and the other two 
untitled Englishmen, of one of whom 
we are only informed that his name 
was Richards. The name of the other 
was Alexander Baring, but he was des- 
tined later to wear the title, Baron 
Ashburton, and to make that one of 
the Misses Bingham whom two years 
later he married, Lady Ashburton, and 
he was also destined later to become 
the head of the great house of Baring 
Brothers, the embarrassment of which 
nearly a century later, started a finan- 
cial panic that was world-wide in its 
scope. 

The Rev. Paul Coffin, D. D., dined at 
Montpelier on Tuesday, August 15, 1796, 
which was one of the days in the six 
weeks. This gentleman was the town 
minister of the town of Buxton in York 
County, and was a man of sufficient 
consequence to have been allowed to 
name the town in which he lived and 
also to have been named as one of the 
first board of overseers of Bowdoin 



College, in the act of the Massachu- 
setts Legislature incorporating that in- 
stitution. At this time he was on a 
missionary tour, or perhaps it may 
have been a tour to examine and report 
in respect to the religious conditions 
existing in the more easterly part of 
the state. Eaton cites from his fourth 
volume (presumably MS.) as preserved 
by the Maine Historical Society, from 
which it appears that on Sunday he 
held the first religious service ever held 
at Duck Trap, preaching to a congre- 
gation of about 90, which was not a 
bad beginning for Duck Trap. On Mon- 
day he came down to "Cambden," 
where "Squire McGlathery" treated 
him with "true and simple politeness 
and hospitality." On Tuesday he went 
from Camden to Warren, where he was 
the guest of Rev. Jonathan Huse, the 
town minister, but, as we shall see, he 
stopped on the way at Montpelier 
where he dined. He mentions that the 
house "had double piazzas all the way 
round it" and "exceeded all that I had 
seen," but he also says of it that "it 
drew beyond all the ventilators I had 
before seen. I was almost frozen be- 
fore we took dinner and a plenty of 
wine." If the house justified that re- 
mark in August, one would say that it 
must have been uncomfortable to live 
in in a Maine winter. The minister's 
blood must have been thin, or the Gen- 
eral's money, put the figure where we 
will, must have been wasted. Mr. Cof- 
fin proceeds to tell us that "The Gen- 
eral being absent in a Portland packet 
with Mr. Bingham, I dined with Mrs. 
Knox and her daughters and Mrs. 
Bingham and her sister and daughter. 
We had a merry dinner" [the dinner 
and the wine evidently suited the rev- 
erend gentleman better than the wait- 
ing] "the little misses talking French 
in a gay mood. Mrs. Bingham was sen- 



Genernl Henry Knox 



slble, could talk of European politics, 
and give the history of the late king of 
Prance, etc." It will be observed that 

Mr. Collin says nothing of the young 
gentlemen of the party. Very likely 
nothing was said to him about them, 
but it may be fairly inferred that they 
had gone "east" with Gen. Knox and 
Mr. Bingham. Mr. Porter says that 
Mr. Baring did accompany them, hav- 
ing bought of Mr. Bingham, or bar- 
gained with him for, an interest in his 
purchase, and that the point "east" to 
which they had gone was Gouldsboro, 
to see Mr. David Cobb, Mr. Bingham's 
manager. 

In August, 1842, Baron Ashburton 
concluded the negotiations which he, 
as envoy extraordinary on the part of the 
British government, had be nconducing 
at the city of Washington.withnolessa 
personage than the Hon. Daniel Web- 
ster, then our Secretary of State, on 
the part of the United States, by which 
was terminated the bloodless Aroos- 
took War of which some of us who are 
oldest have heard our fathers speak. 
While th^se great men were determining 
the boundaries of Maine, is it not more 
than likely that some reference was 
made by the Baron to his six weeks' 
summer tarry here forty-five years 
agone, when his good wife was his lady 
love, and to the family whose guests 
they were, whose relations had been 
so close with the family of Lady Ash- 
burton? Of that family only the two 
daughters were now living. The eldest, 
Mrs. Thatcher, was a widow, her hus- 



band having died a year before at 
Bingham, Maine, the town which, be- 
ing one of those carved out of his pur- 
chase, bore tin' name of Lady Ashbur- 
ton's father. The fact that Mr.Thatch- 
er, who was a Harvard graduate and a 
lawyer, settled there, may hint at the 
close relations between the families 
having been maintained. 

Mr. Coffin spoke of the daughters of 
Mrs. Knox and the daughter of Mrs. 
Bingham, and this may indicate that 
he mistook one of the Misses Bingham 
for a daughter of his hostess, whose 
younger daughter was then only a 
child of five years. She had grown to 
be a brilliant woman and after the 
death of her first husband, who seems 
to have done himself, her, or the fam- 
ily little credit, she had married Hon. 
John Holmes, ex-U. S. Senator from 
Maine, a man of national reputation 
whom Webster must have known well, 
and perhaps he may have been able to 
tell the Baron, if the latter did not 
know it, that Holmes had gone with 
her to live in the old mansion which 
had become somewhat dilapidated and 
was putting it to rights, and that again 
its traditions were being measurably 
kept up. I think I have hinted at an 
opportunity for some one with a fair 
degree of literary invention to write 
an imaginary conversation between 
two distinguished men with a larger 
probability of dealing with a subject 
that they may have touched upon than 
is the case with some such conversa- 
tions that have been similarly set down. 



A Visitor Who Became King of France 



But we must hasten to deal with the 
two other distinguished foreigners who 
Eaton say.--, and everybody who has 
written since follows him in saying, 
visited Montpelier— Tallyrand and 



Louis Philippe. They are always men- 
1 together, and this suggests the 
question — Did they come together? 
Eai li of them is an interesting charac- 
ter. Louis Philippe, descended on the 



General Henry Knox 



"7 



paternal side from the brother of the 
grand monarch Louis XIV. and on the 
maternal side from the grand monarch 
himself, was the son of that prince of 
the blood who consented to doff his 
royal name and be rechristened Phil- 
ippe Egalite, (Philip Equality,) and, to 
his shame, voted for the death of his 
royal kinsman whom not long after he 
followed to the guillotine. It was a line 
of brilliant men, but as a rule neither 
good nor safe ones from whom Louis 
Philippe sprang. He appears to have 
been a man of character as well as ca- 
pacity. If he came to Montpelier it 
seems certain that it must have been 
in the latter part of 1797. He was a 
man of fine presence, and though at 
that time only 24 years old he had a 
career as well as an ancestry behind 
him. Born and reared in luxury in one 
of the finest palaces in France, as a 
boy he had followed his erratic father 
into the revolutionary movement and 
had served as doorkeeper in the fa- 
mous Jacobin dub, and when yet only 
19 years old had won great distinction 
in the army of Republican France, in 
the first campaign against her mon- 
archical enemies, at the battle of Val- 
my, and the great victory at Jemappes. 
Even then he was spoken of as one 
who might fill the throne some day, 
and is credited with an avowed ambi- 
tion in that direction. But in the mad 
times that set in the French army 
came to be a dangerous place for a 
man of noble blood, and even more so 
for one of the royal stock, and he 
sought safety In flight. For a matter 
of four years he was an exile and a 
wanderer. He served for eight months, 
under an assumed name, as professor 
in an institution in Switzerland, hav- 
ing gained his position by a competi- 
tive examination. Then he changed his 
alias and traveled over a great many 



parts of Europe. He was in a hard 
place, out of favor with monarchists 
for having served in the republican ar- 
my, and with republicans for having 
deserted that service. Versatility had 
been a characteristic of the house of 
Orleans ,and this experience undoubt- 
edly tended to make him a more than 
ordinarily resourceful man. I remem- 
ber of reading that when he was 75 
years old and King of France, and when 
the great revolutionary movement of 
1848, the most conspicuous effect of 
which was to sweep him from his 
throne, was threatening the existing 
order of things, he told a visitor that 
he was the only monarch in Europe 
who was fit to reign under the condi- 
tions then existing. Whatever the 
visitor may have thought of the truth 
or taste of the remark, he felt that, in- 
asmuch as it was made by a king, the 
proper thing to be done was to make 
an assenting reply which involved a 
compliment, at hearing which the king 
laughed and said, Oh, I don't mean 
that, but the outlook for royalty is bad 
just now, and I am the only man of 
them who ever blacked his own boots, 
and I can do it again." 

When the madness of Jacobin rule 
had passed away and the Directory 
came into power, it found the two 
younger brothers of the Duke in the 
prison where they, two little boys too 
small to be harmful to anybody, had 
been thrown with their father, who 
had been torn from them to die on the 
guillotine. Their constitutions had 
been broken by anxiety, confinement 
and prison fare. The directors were at 
a loss to know what to do with them. 
They were afraid to let them go, and 
especially were they uneasy at the fear 
of what their brother.who was at large, 
might be doing. Finally the proposi- 
tion was made to their mother that if 



iS 



General Henry Knox 



she w»uld arrange that in the event of 
the liberation of the two sons in prison 
(whose confinement was none the ea- 
sier to bear that the one was supposed 
to be the Uuke of Montpensier and the 
other the Count of Beaujelais) her 
three sons should leave Europe and go 
to America. Gladly the poor mother 
agreed that they should do so, provided 
she could find the wanderer, her eldest 
born. Quite a hard time she had to 
find him under his concealment of 
place and name, but she set a trusted 
agent to hunt for him, and at last he 
was found and through the good offices 
of Mr. Gouveneur Morris , who had 
been U. S. Minister to France during 
the Terror, a loan was effected, which 
afforded the means to make the trip, 
and October 25, 1796, Louis Philippe ar- 
rived in Philadelphia, and a few days 
after he arrived there his two brothers 
sailed from France, and in the succeed- 
ing February they joined him in Phil- 
adelphia. The intervening three months 
he spent in Philadelphia. The Bing- 
ham family had been in France as we 
have seen. They were people of refine- 
ment and standing, and it would be 
natural that he should become ac- 
quainted with them. It must have been 
at this time that he met Miss Willing. 
This was the winter succeeding the 
summer, six weeks of which she spent 
at Thomaston. It was also the winter 
preceding the autumn when Louis Phil- 
ippe must have come here, if he came 
at all. If it is true that an engage- 
ment was contracted it may be as- 
sumed that if it had not been broken, 
this American lady might have lived to 
be Queen of France, unless the Duke's 
marriage with an untitled American 
misht have been held to bar him from 
the throne, and it would seem that we 
are justified in thinking it would have 



created no bar in the mind of the man, 
who perhaps more than any other was 
instrumental in calling him there, to 
wit, Lafayette. The Century article 
while it does not mention the name of 
Bingham, does mention Miss Willing, 
and in terms which rather negative the 
idea that the affair between her and 
Louis Philippe proceeded so far as an 
engagement. It states that Mr.Orleans 
as he was called, proposed for the hand 
of the lady and was told by her father 
that as an exile destitute of means he 
was not a suitable match for her, and 
that, should he recover his rights, she 
would be no match for him, which re- 
ply tends to show that Mr. Willing was 
a clear-headed and sensible man, and 
inclines us to think that his daughter 
would not have disgraced a throne if 
Fate had placed her on one, 

A dozen years later than this Louis 
Philippe married in the purple, a 
daughter of the King of Sicily, and 
reared a family who achieved no small 
distinction. He. himself, was called to 
the throne of France at the age of 57, 
and for seventeen years was the most 
conspicuous monarch in Europe. It 
was in his reign that the remains of 
the great Napoleon were brought from 
St. Helena and buried in Paris, and his 
son, the Prince of Joinville, command- 
ed the squadron which brought them. 
This same son, and two of his neph- 
ews, the elder the Count of Paris and 
heir of the house, served our country 
in the War of the Rebellion on Me- 
rcian's staff during the Peninsular 
campaign, to the displeasure, as it is 
understood, of Victor Hugo's Napoleon 
the Little, who was then living at the 
Tuileries. Another son, the Duke of 
Aumale, attained the highest honor In 
the domain of French scholarship, a 
place in the Academy. 



General Henry Knox 



l 9 



The Most Prominent of French Statesmen 



What was there behind and what 
before Talleyrand when he visited 
America? It does not seem to be defi- 
nitely known when he did come but 
he was a little rising 40 years old. He 
was the eldest son of one of the great 
French nobles. When he was 15 years 
old a family council was held over him 
and it was decided that because he was 
a lame and sickly boy, his younger 
brother should take his position as 
head of the family and he should be 
educated for the church. This shows 
that family councils are not Infallible 
for the weakling of this family lived to 
be 84 years old. They destined him for 
the church for which he was not at all 
adapted because they thought him 
unequal to the task of directing the 
affairs and sustaining the dignity of 
their house, and he directed the affairs 
and sustained the dignity of the nation 
for many years under conditions in 
which there were no precedents to de- 
termine the action best to be taken and 
in a manner that won the admiration 
of his contemporaries and gained for 
him a place in history as one of the 
ablest men of affairs who ever lived. 

However, they had their way in the 
bearinning and sent him to a clerical 
school in which he attained the highest 
honors, became a priest, and at once 
commenced to bear great churchly re- 
sponsibilities and to win high churchly 
preferment. At the age of 34. just be- 
forethe breakiner out of the Revolution 
he was made Bishop of Auton, a place 
worth $10,000 a year, a good deal of 
money at that time. He was the only 
prominent churchman who espoused 
the revolutionary cause. He was elect- 
ed to the Assembly, where he made a 
notable report on public education, and 
proposed and carried a law confiscat- 



ing the church property. This law was 
liked by the people but was naturally 
unpopular with his brother clergymen. 
Nevertheless, eight months later, he 
led the 200 clergymen who celebrated 
the mass, at the great ceremony of the 
federation, the most magnificent of 
spectacles, the spectators of which 
were numbered by the hundreds of 
thousands.many of whom believed that 
a new era was being ushered in. That 
was his last appearance as an ecclesi- 
astic, and, later, the pope excommuni- 
cated him. Late in his life he was re- 
stored to the church but never to the 
priesthood. He was the most intimate 
friend of the great Mirabeau, and after 
his death read to the assembly a 
speech which Mirabeau had prepared 
and left for him to read. As long as 
the great contest was one of brains he 
was a man to hold his own with the 
rest, but when brains came to be at a 
discount and ruffianism to be at a pre- 
mium, it was the time for such a man 
to go elsewhere, always provided he 
could get away, and wait for the storm 
to blow over. 

Talleyrand did get away, and so it 
was that he came to America. 
It is stated that one reason why he in- 
curred the displeasure of the radicals 
was his friendship for Louis Philippe's 
father. It seems certain that through 
all his life he had a strong friendship 
for the house of Orleans, and makes it 
not unlikely that a place where he vis- 
ited while in this country was one 
where Louis Philippe mierht visit too. 
After he went back to France he be- 
came Minister of Foreign Affairs un- 
der the Directory. In that capacity Na- 
poleon found him acting when he came 
into power and in that capacity he re- 
tained him. Each of these men recog- 



30 



General Henry Knox 



nized in the other a man of ability, but 
it is doubtful if either really at any time 
had any great love for the other. Na- 
poleon recognized the value of Talley- 
rand's services to him by making him 
Prince of Bonevento, and very proper- 
ly, for while Talleyrand served him he 
had no more efficient servant. When 
the Russian expedition was projected 
he prophesied his master's downfall. 
He saw his prediction verified and at 
the end did more than a little to bring 
about the verification. The allies made 
Louis XVIII. put him back in the pre- 
miership, but he did not keep office 
very long under the new master. The 
Bourbons might possibly forgive the 
blows he had dealt to the old heredita- 
ry privileges, though they could not 
forget them, for you know that one of 
their characteristics was that they 
never forgot anything, the other being 
that they never learned anything, but 
they could hardly be expected either to 
forgive or forget his active participa- 
tion in that most direct blow which Na- 
poleon dealt against their house, the 
execution of the Duke of Enghien, 
which historians have .ather generally 
agreed in condemning as a judicial 
murder. But he had more power to 
hurt the royal house than the house 



had to hurt him and he had some- 
thing to do with its making its final 
exit off the royal stage. He was Lou- 
is Philippe's confidential adviser when 
the Revolution of 1830 came, and when 
it had been determined that the out- 
come of that Revolution should be to 
put Louis Philippe on the throne he 
offered Talleyrand his old position as 
minister of Foreign Affairs. This, Tal- 
leyrand, who had now come to be 75 
years of age, declined, but accepted, at 
a princely salary, the ministry to Eng- 
land. It had been one point of disa- 
greement beween him and Napoleon 
that he had advised the endeavor to 
secure friendly relations with Eng- 
land, and if Napoleon had been will- 
ing to accept his guidance on this 
point he might perhaps have died Em- 
peror. In his position as minister he 
negotiated an important treaty, the 
last conspicuous act of his public life. 
He wrote, or had written, his memoirs, 
and it is of record that at one time he 
entrusted them to the care of Baron 
Ashburton, which fact has a tendency 
to show an intimacy with the Bing- 
ham family strong enough to be car- 
ried over into the later years of his 
life. 



Tour of the Princes : Did it Extend to Thomaston ? 



The Century article, (which I com- 
mend to the reading of any who have 
not read it,) says that, in March, 1797, 
the Orleans princes, after having lis- 
tened to Washington's Farewell Ad- 
dress and Adams' inaugural, made an 
extended tour of the country which 
was planned for them by no less a 
personage than Washington. They 
introduced each other as "Mr. Or- 
leans," "Mr. Montpensier," and "Mr. 
Beaujelais," and, unless they had oc- 



casion to present letters which they 
carried to some persons on the route, 
no one knew of their rank. 

In most of the country over which 
they passed conditions were primitive. 
They were happy in being free, out of 
danger, and in each other's society, 
and took the haps and mishaps of 
travel as they came, making them- 
selves at home in the kitchens of the 
farmers, or the cabins of the hunters 
or even the wigwams of the Indians, 



General Henry Knox 



21 



as well as enjoying the society of the 
people of station and prominence to 
whose houses their letters made them 
welcome. It is worthy our note that 
in speaking of one of the places where 
they visited, the settlement on the 
banks of the Susquehanna, made by 
the French loyalists who escaped 
from the Terror, the Century article 
mentions that La Rochefoucauld had 
been there two years before them, and 
that it speaks of Mr. Baring, af- 
terwards Lord Ashburton, meeting 
them in the woods in New York, and 
conducting and introducing them to 
one of the families where they made a 
stay. It states that after making the 
long trip they went from Philadelphia 
to New York as Talleyrand's guests, 
and that on October 21, the Boston pa- 
pers announced their arrival with Tal- 
leyrand at that place, and that a little 
later, they, with Talleyrand, made a 
trip to Maine, stopping at Newbury- 
port and Haverhill. At Gardiner it 
says their host was General Henry 
Dearborn, and that is all that is said 
as to their stopping in Maine. General 
Dearborn was then U. S. Marshal for 
the District of Maine, and during the 
time he so served was resident at 
Gardiner. He had attained some dis- 
tinction in the Revolutionary War.and 
later than this was Secretary of War 
in Jefferson's cabinet then served in 
the War of 1812, and for a time was 
the commander of the U. S. Army, or 
at least its senior Major General, in 
piping times of peace. But he was by 
no means so great a man as Knox. 
There were ties which seem to have 
connected the travelers with the Bing- 
ham family, the Knox's friends, and 
inasmuch as Washington had planned 
their southern and western trip, it is 
natural that they should have talked 
with him about their trip northward, 



if they should make one, and certainly 
there was nobody in New England to 
whom Washington would be more like- 
ly, and nobody in Maine to whom he 
would be so likely to commend them 
as to Knox. Being at Gardiner a trip 
to Thomaston would be no more than 
a day's easy horseback ride, and it 
seems more than likely, on general 
principles, laying aside the local tra- 
dition, that Thomaston was their ob- 
jective point in coming to Maine. 

But on one point the Century article 
is plainly in error. It seems certain 
that this is the only time the Orleans 
princes were ever in Maine, and it is 
absolutely certain that Talleyrand 
was not with them, for he accepted 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 
France under the Directory in July, 
1797, and on December 5, 1797 ,he made 
the address of welcome to Bonaparte 
on his return from his first Italian 
campaign. The princes started from 
Boston November 5, returned again to 
Boston and started from there for New 
Orleans on December 10, and all this 
time Talleyrand was in France. If he 
came to Thomaston, and I have faith 
in the testimony that he and Louis 
Philippe were here, it must have been 
earlier and I think it not unlikely that 
the future premier was here two years 
before the future king. If it be true 
that the Boston papers of October 21, 
1797, recorded their arrival in the town 
together (bear in mind that then and 
for more than a dozen years after it 
was a town and had its selectmen) 
they must have been in error as to 
Talleyrand. It way have been a re- 
porter's mistake. Possibly the faith- 
ful valet of the Duke who had been his 
inseparable attendant through his 
years of vicissitude may by this time 
have gained a look of sufficient impor- 
tance to represent a statesman to the 



General Henry Knox 



eye» of a reporter. Even in these days 
reporters make mistakes and may 
have done so in the early days of the 
republic. 

It is said that Talleyrand accumu- 
lated wealth while in America. It 
would hardly seem that he was here 
long- enough to have gained much store 
of worldly goods, but he appears to 
have been a man who had an eye to 
the main chance. The Maine timber 
lands dazzled the eye of some of the 
men whom he met, and he may have 
come to Thomaston partly to see how 
they looked. If he did he was wise 
enough to make his investments else- 
where. 

And if Louis Philippe came here in 
1797, are we to suppose that Montpe- 
lier was honored by a visit, not from 
one but from three, princes of royal 
blood? If so, why did the local tra- 
dition preserve the story of the visit 
©f one and not three? It is true that 
Montpensier and Beaujelais, because 
of the hardships they had undergone 
when they should have been going to 
school, did not live very long or ac- 



complish very much, but they were j 
princes all the same, and seem to have 
been worthy young men of good abil- 
ity. Perhaps they stopped at Gardiner 
and Orleans rode across country ac- , 
companied only by his valet. Their j 
first journey had covered some 3,000 
miles mostly made on horseback, it | 
was getting late in the season, and ' 
neither of them was strong. It is im- 
pressed on my mind that his attach- 
ment to Miss Willing was the reason 
that made Louis Philippe persistent to 
visit her friends, and the place where 
she had spent the summer of the year 
previous. When the course of love 
stopped short of matrimony, the noble 
lover when he sat down the record of 
his journey may have been content to 
let his memory take care of that part 
of it which was associated with his 
lady love, and that may be the reason 
why the written record stops with 
Gardiner. As for the place, Montpelier 
may not have looked as well to him in 
late November as it did to her in Au- 
gust. 



Hawthorne Calls at the Manor House 



An American, who was destined later 
to achieve eminence, made a visit to 
Montpelier in August, 1837, of which he 
has left a record. His name was Nathan- 
iel Hawthorne. He came in the month 
after the marriage of Mrs. Swan to 
Mr. Holmes. Of course it was too 
soon for him to get the benefit of any 
of the improvements which Mr. Holmes 
made. Hawthorne had graduated 
from Bowdoin a dozen years before 
and had been dabbling in literature 
since his graduation, and had recently 
collected some of his fugitive pieces in 
a volume, and one of his college class- 
mates, whose name was Henry Wads- 



worth Longfellow, had written an ex- 
ceedingly eulogistic review of the book, 
which the author had very recently 
read, and for it had written his thanks 
to his friend. 

He had another classmate named 
Jonathan Cilley, who had been 
one of the most intimate of his 
college friends, who had settled a 
Thomaston and gained distinction in 
law and politics, and was now 
Member of Congress from his 
district. Apparently by acci- 

dent, the two had met at Augusta for 
the first time since graduation. This 
Hawthorne sets down in his note book 



is 




j B -js S£"1 



to'J >. z 



General Henry Knox 



25 



under date of July 28. He then pro- 
ceeds to write a critical analysis of 
his friend's character which it is inter- 
esting to compare with the biographi- 
cal sketch which he published two 
years later, after Cilley's tragical 
death. He finishes with — "upon the 
whole I have a very good liking for 

him, and mean to go to to see 

him." We should enjoy Haw- 
thorne's note books better if some of 
the omitted words could be supplied. 
Under date of August 12 he records 
that he "left Augusta a week ago for 

." A little further on we read: 

"Walked with to see Gen. 

Knox's old mansion, a large rusty- 
looking edifice of wood with some 
grandeur in the architecture." Haw- 
thorne does not tell us any of the 
stories which Eaton set down later, and 
the writers after Eaton copied from him, 
which attests the fact that for about 
all we know that is interesting in re- 
gard to this period of Knox's life we 
are indebted to Eaton. Here is what 
strikes me as the best thing that he 
does say: 

"The house and its vicinity and 
the whole tract covered by Knox's 
patent, may be taken as an illustration 
of what must be the result of American 
schemes of aristocracy. It is not forty 
years since this house was built and 
Knox was in all his glory; but now the 
house is all in decay, while within a 
stone's throw of it there is a street of 
smart white edifices of one and two 
stories which has been laid out where 
Knox meant to have forests and 
parks." Here is another statement 
which he makes, the correctness of 
which I have seen nothing which 
tends to verify, but which I 
think must be taken as an inference 
he made from something which he 



heard while on this visit to Thomas- 
ton — "His [Knox's] way of raising 
money was to give a mortgage on his 
estate of a hundred thousand dollars at 
a time, and receive that nominal 
amount in goods which he would im- 
mediately sell at auction for perhaps 
thirty thousand." He says that the 
General was personally very popular, 
and so much of the local tradition as 
he heard in relation to Mrs. Knox, evi- 
dently tended to prejudice him against 
her. 

He speaks of her as " a haughty 
English lady." I presume that her 
father was born in England. Eaton 
states that Gen. Waldo was born there 
but his father did business in Boston 
for the most of the active part of his 
life, so that the Waldo family had 
lived in America for three generations 
before Mrs. Knox and had large inter- 
ests here, and, as for her, she had 
enough American blood in her veins to 
make her loyal to the land in the na- 
tion's birth-struggle. There is nothing 
in his "Notes" to indicate that Haw- 
thorne knew anything about Mrs. 
Knox's ancestry. He wrote a brief 
biography of Sir William Pepperell 
which shows that he made a careful 
study of the Louisburg expedition, but 
in it he does not mention the name of 
Waldo. For aught that appears he may 
have thought that Mrs. Knox was Eng- 
lish by birth. 

He 6peaka of Mrs. Holmes 
as "a mild, amiable woman." This 
60unds very much like a negative 
characterization, and is not such a one 
as might have been expected from 
Hawthorne, if we compare it with the 
uniform testimony of those who knew 
Mrs. Holmes. Mr. E. M. O'Brien, who 
remembers her well, speaks of her as 
the most charming lady whom he ever 



r* 



26 



General Henry Knox 



met H<' tells me that his older broth- 
er, Charles, whose untimely death was 
greatly lamented, was a favorite of 
hers as a boy, so much so that she 
used to invite him to the mansion to 
visit for days at a time. "When Mr. 
Holmes came to Thomaston he made 
repairs on and about the mansion, as I 
have hinted, and Mr. O'Brien remem- 
bers him and his wife as driving about 
town to make calls in a coach which 
had been the General's, which he had 
got out and had renovated. He also 
mentioned that Mr. Holmes served as 



superintendent of the Congregational 
Sunday school in which he (O'Brien) 
was a boy pupil. The new era which 
he Inaugurated at the mansion was 
brought to an end by his sudden death 
six years after his marriage. His wife 
survived him eight years. 

Hawthorne speaks of her as the only 
survivor of Knox's children at the time 
of his visit. In fact Mrs. Thatcher was 
then living and lived seventeen years 
after that, surviving Mrs. Holmes by 
three years. 



Tribute to Mrs. Thatcher's Memory 



About a year after Mrs. Thatcher's 
death, Mrs. Sarah F. Woodhull, whose 
husband was for many years the hon- 
ored pastor of the Congregational 
church in Thomaston, and who was a • 
long-time intimate friend of Mrs. 
Holmes, Mrs. Thatcher and Mrs. 
Thatcher's daughter, Mrs. Hyde, pub- 
lished the following beautiful tribute: 

To the Memory of the T.ate Mrs. Lucy F. K. 
Thatcher of Thomaston, Eldest and Lasl S ir- 
viving Child of Gen. Knox. 

Dear, cherished friend, the grave doth hold thy 

form. 
But yet thou art not dead not lost to as. 
Thy memory lives enshrined in loving hearts, 
A blessing and a joy. Thine influence 
Still is with us. tiiy christian life still sheds 
A heavenlv fragrance on our pathway here. 
God gave thee many gifts; hut thou didst lay 
Them all in meekness down at Jesus' feet. 
Though reared in princely halls among the great 
And good of other times, and sharing all 
The wealth of intellect, of fame and power, 
Thy country in its early days could boast, 
Thy soul maintained its innocence, and grew 
In goodness, as the flowers unfold themselves 
In beauty. Nur;ured amid troublous times 
Thy heart could ne'er forget thy country's weal. 
But ever through thy life her interests 
Were thine, and 'twas thy daily prayer that she 
Should hold a pure, a high renown, among 
The nations of the earth ; that her fair fame 
Should he unsullied by a single blot, 
But now amid the scenes of private life, 



As wife ami mothei . daughter, sister, friend, 
l by virtues shone conspicuous and serene. 
Woman's own destiny to suffer much 
Was thine. How was tiiy heart with anguish 

wrung 
(Her the graves of all thy honored dead: 
Thou the last one of the dear household band. 
The untold sot rows of a widowed heart 
With christian fortitude thou long didst bear, 
Ami then thy DOhle son on the wide sea. 
Whose late mi mystery is Bhrouded still 
How thou didst mourn for him : Howthoudidst 

grieve 
For her thine eldest horn, whose life of faith 
Ami patient toil, as a loved pastor's wife 
Had often won the meed of grateful praise 
Prom those who Could appreciate her worth. 
Her many graceful deeds. How thou didst miss 
Thy youngest flower, cut down in life's fair 

"morn : 
And when thou hadst come hack to live and die 
In thine ancestral halls, thy childhood's home, 
And memories of othor days began to bring 
Their joys around thee, till thy verysoul 
Thrilled to their sweetest tone in harmony. 
Then as the loving child. on whom thine age 
Did tondly lean, sickened, and droopeu, and 

died. 
How thy rent heart shivered and shook beneath 
The of t* repeated stroke : 

God gave thee grace 
Si ill in simplicity and childish trust 
To lean on Him in whom all fulness dwells. 
And thou didst trim anew thy lamp, and fold 
The wedding garment closer round thy form, 
To wait the Bridegroom's call. 

The summons came 
And found thee ready, with thy lamp all bright, 
The robe all pure and spotless. . 



General Henry Knox 



Farewell, dear friend, 
Revered and loved, as thou wast here below, 
We would not call thee back from thy reward. 
But we would follow thee to yon bright world, 
And see the greeting of that am*el band. 
The friends and kindred who have gone before, 
And hear the music of their golden harps 
Bidding thee welcome to seraphic joys. 
And we would strive to live thy lite of faith. 
()t patience, gentleness and Christian love, 
That when ok; - summons comes to meet our God, 
We too may leave a memory behind. 
As precious as thine own. 

S. F. W. 
Thomaston, Nov. 7, 1854. 



Mrs. Thatcher was the only child of 
the General who had children. Her de- 
scendants now living', I think less than 
a score in number, I am informed are 
all people of worth and culture. As we 
know, her oldest son, Henry Knox 
Thatcher, served with great distinction 
in the navy prior to and during the 
War of the Rebellion, and attained to 
the grade of Rear Admiral. 



Statesman, Lawyer and Wit who Lived at Montpelier 



In passing 1 may say a word about 
Mr. Holmes. It was he who presented 
to congress the memorial asking for 
the admission of Maine as a state of 
the Union. Ben: Perley Poore in his 
reminiscences speaks of him as "the 
humorous statesman of the north," and 
says, "Ever on the watch for some un- 
guarded expression by a southern 
senator, no sooner would one be ut- 
tered than he would pounce upon it and 
place the speaker in a most uncom- 
fortable position." For one exhibition 
of his skill at repartee he will probably 
be longer remembered than for any 
serious work he ever did. The eccen- 
tric John Randolph of Roanoke once 
used the expression — "The political firm 
of James Madison, Felix Grundy, John 
Holmes and the Devil." Some years 
after, during a debate in the senate, 
John Tyler asked Mr. Holmes what 
had become of Randolph's firm. Mr. 



Holmes replied: "I will tell the gentle- 
man. The first member is dead, the 
second has gone into retirement, the 
third now addresses you, and the 
fourth has gone over to the Nullifiers 
and is now electioneering among the 
gentleman's constituents, so the part- 
nership is legally dissolved." This was 
certainly a clever retort, and though 
the tilt may be in some sense said to 
have been between north and south it 
will be observed that the two eminent 
men with whom Holmes was represent- 
ed as associated were southerners, and 
not only so but each was a native of 
Randolph's own Old Dominion. The 
other personality can better be design- 
ated a cosmopolite than a northerner 
or southerner. It is gratifying to learn 
that Mr. Holmes severed relations with 
him before becoming a Thomaston 
Sunday school superintendent. 



What Knox Failed To Do and What He Did 



It is not strange that Knox's land 
venture proved a failure. He had 
spent his life in the service of his coun- 
try, and in that service had gained a 
reputation for honesty and capacity 
which gave him a credit which was 



very large for the times. But his train- 
ing gave him no special 'fitness for the 
task before him, and the magnitude of 
his operations made their success de- 
pend on the fidelity of such agents as 
he might secure. To get trustworthy 



2S 



General Henry Knox 



agents who had such experience and 
capacity as would have been requisite 
to make his projects successful would 
have been well-nigh impossible. There 
was but one resource which might pos- 
sibly have saved him from failure and 
that was to sell land. He made one 
sale for $200,000, nominally at least, to 
Thorndike, Sears and Prescott which is 
set forth in the Wiscasset Registry. 
Whether there was anything connected 
with this sale which was the founda- 
tion of the statement I have quoted 
from Hawthorne I do not know. Mr. 
Porter says that had he lived the 
chances were that he would have been 
able to sell enough land to relieve 
his necessities. It would seem that 10 
years of experience might have sufficed 
to teach him that this part of the 
United States was no place for the 
establishment of a grand seigniory. But 
whatever may have been his plans, or 
however time would have dealt with 
them had his life been spared, his sudden 
death at the comparatively early age of 
56 put an end to them, and as to wheth- 
er a longer life would have afforded 
him the opportunity of retrievinghisem- 
barrassed fortunes, or only have sub- 
jected him to a larger experience of 
trouble, we may speculate but cannot 
know. 

But we do know, that before Knox 
came to us, he had done enough to 
have established his permanent fame. 
He was at the head of the artillery 
arm of the service during the Revolu- 
tionary war, and one of Washington's 
most trusted counsellors in military 
matters. He managed the war office 
under the old confederacy during the 
interim between the close of the war 
and the adoption of the constitution. 
He was the first secretary of war under 
the new government in which capacity 



he organized the regular army, and, 
there being no navy, and the war af- 
faira of the nation by sea as well as 
land being under his charge, he was 
instrumental in securing the building 
of the ships of which Old Ironsides was 
the most famous, which, after he waa 
gone, sustained the prestige of the 
country in what has been called the 
Second War of Independence. He sat 
at Washington's council-board with 
Jefferson and Hamilton, and was one 
of the closest friends of Lafayette and 
Greene, and, above all, of him who was 
"first in war, first in peace and first in 
the hearts of his countrymen." The 
fame of the man of whom these things 
are written is secure beyond all possi- 
bility of change, or chance, or criticism. 
The remains of Knox and his family 
rest in a lot about 12x15 feet in the vil- 
. lage cemetery. A few years ago the 
General's great-grand-daughter, Mrs. 
Fowler, had a handsome granite curb- 
ing put round the lot and the old fam- 
ily monument raised upon a granite 
base with chiselled edges, the whole be- 
ing done in excellent taste; and the lot 
has no longer an uncared-for look. The 
monument is of very dark marble; the 
portion devoted to the inscriptions is 
square and is surmounted by a pyra- 
midal top which rises to about the 
height of nine feet. On the southern 
face is the inscription in honor of the 
General; on the western are the names, 
date of death and age at death of Mrs. 
Knox and Mrs. Holmes; on the eastern 
the same of Henry Knox, the son ,Mr. 
Swan and Mrs. Thatcher, and on the 
north are the names of the nine chil- 
dren who died in infancy and early 
childhood. Two stones of light marble 
stand one at the east and one at the 
west of the monument. On that at the 
west is graven the names of Mr. 



General Henry Knox 



29 



Thatcher and Mrs. Hyde, and on that 
at the east the name of James Swan 
Thatcher, lost at sea in the U. S. 
schooner Grampus in March, 1843. The 
view in Brooks' book is an excellent 
representation of the lot. 

The following little poem was written 
by Mr. Holmes. The dedication is evi- 
dently to Mrs. Swan. Since he speaks 
of himself as "a stranger or one little 
known" to her who a little more than a 
year later became his wife, it is not im- 
probable that the kindly sentiments 
which it expresses may have had an 
influence in attracting each to the 
other. 

Lines Written at the Tomb of Gen. Henry Knox 
and Dedicated to His Daughter by a Visitor. 

In peaceful slumbers with his kindred dead 

A patriot hero here reclines his head, 

For freedom's sake had Heaven preserved his 

life. 
Amid the cannon's roar— the battle's strife; 
The brave— the good— e'en Washington's com- 
peer, 



The soldier, statesman now lies mouldering here. 
The heirs of freedom long will consecrate 
This spot so sacred to a name so great ; 
Here often will be shed the grateful tear 
Where sleeps the brave whose name's to free- 
dom dear. 
And is it here— here in this silent tomb. 
The patriot-warrior finds his final home? 
'•His final home?" O no, the triumph's short. 
Which death has gained e'en o'er his mortal 

part. 
This mouldering form will renovated rise 
To join his fellow patriots in the skies— 
The soul redeemed, united and restored, 
■\V ill realize its Infinite reward. 
And you. his perfect emblem, here are left, 
Of almost all your dearest friends bereft ; 
I. though a stranger or one scarcely known, 
Yet claim a kindred spirit with your own — 
Kindred in having seen the peace and strife. 
The joys and sorrows of this checkered life ; 
Kindred in its alternate hopes and fears ; 
Kindred in its successive smiles and tears ; 
Kindred in sweet reflections on the past; 
Kindred to see bereavements come so fast; 
Kindred in fine in hope religion gives 
The cheering thought that "our Redeemer 

lives;" 
Kindred in faith that (all our sins forgiven) 
8uch kindred souls will rest, at last, in Heaven. 

J. H. 
Thomaston, May 27, 1836. 



The Bell That Paul Revere Made For Knox 



After the tomb, the bell in the tower 
of the old church on Mill River Hill is 
more intimately connected with Knox's 
memory than anything in our vicinity. 
This bell was made by the patriot, 
Paul Revere, and for the making Knox 
paid him a little over four hundred dol- 
lars, as the receipted bill in the Knox 
papers testifies. After serving the pub- 
lic until fifteen years and more after 
the General's death the bell cracked, 
and was recast at the Revere works 
four years after Paul Revere died. 
What was the original inscription is 
not known but it included a motto 
which General Knox wrote. N The let- 
tering now on it is: 

<$> <$> 



<£>- 



REVERE BOSTON, 1822. | 
<J> 



The first casting was probably done 
under Paul Revere's personal supervi- 
sion. The establishment (still in exist- 
ence which grew from the business he 
started had undoubtedly its small be- 
ginning when the master supervised 
personally all the work that he did not 
himself do. We may fancy Paul Re- 
vere watching the molten metal for our 
bell as Schiller represents his master- 
founder as doing. 

"That the tough bell-metal going 
Through the mold be rigbtly flowing; 
That in substance clear abounding 
Pure and full the bell be sounding." 

When its voice cracked (as a singer's 
voice will sometimes) it was taken 
back to its birthplace to be made good 
as new (as cannot be done with a sing- 
er's cracked voice) and the tone that 



3<> 



General Henry Knox 



Paul Revere gave It at its birth was 
given back to it, and in that tone it has 



spoken as often as it has been asked to 
speak as the years have passed. 



What and Where Should the Knox Monument Be 



I hope, as do we all, for the success 
of the effort that our congressman is 
making to secure an appropriation for 
a monument to our hero. In view of 
the possibility of such success, I have 
my suggestion to make. 

I would not have the monument built 
over the General's resting-place. The 
one that has done duty there these 
many years has associations too sacred 
to allow of its disturbance. The work 
that was lately done for it by loving 
hands was well done; let no other 
hands be laid upon it. 

There has been too much of change 
at and about the site of the old man- 
sion to make that the best place for the 
monument we hope to have. 

If we find that we may have one and 
if neither of these places is the place 
for it, where shall we put it and what 
sort of monument shall it be? I would 
have it of the best design with suitable 
inscriptions, and of no other material 
than the best Knox county granite, and 
as the best does not come from any one 
quarry I would have it from that one 
of our best quarries, whose proprietors 
would give us the most suitably dress- 
ed granite for the money. I would have 
it built on the site of the old church 
where Gen. Knox worshipped, in the 
form of a bell-tower; and in the bell- 
chamber I would have the Paul Revere 
bell hung. The church has gone to 
ruin, and there is nothing about it that 
would make it specially worth saving 
were it in better repair than it is. It 
makes little difference how soon it 
comes down, and I would have the bell 
taken down as soon as might be, and 



put where it is safe from the menace of 
the fire-bug or the vandal. 

If there be no prospect of a monu- 
ment in the immediate future, if suffi- 
cient means could be raised — and about 
this there ought to be no question — I 
would have the site secured, and from 
the stout timbers of the old church, 
such timbers as do not now grow any- 
where hereabout, I would have a 
structure erected, of symmetrical pro- 
portions, with shingled walls stained 
into tasteful colors, to keep the place 
and be a temporary home for the bell. 

One has but to climb to the old bel- 
fry, to see that it commands the finest 
vii w that the town affords. In the dis- 
tance in one direction are the moun- 
tains and in the other is the sea, and 
coursing its way through its broad val- 
ley is the river that carries the waters 
that gush from the springs on the side 
of the one to their home in the bosom 
of the other. 

I would have the old bell sound from 
its place as often as should be best cal- 
culated to afford a patriotic inspiration. 
It should ring loud and clear on the na- 
tion's birthday; on the birthday of the 
Father of his Country; on the birthday 
of the great martyr President; when- 
ever a great event should occur, or a 
great man should come our way; not 
ofter enough to cheapen its voice, nor 
yet so seldom as to let us forget that 
we have it. 

On the night of the eighteenth of 
April, it might well ring in memory of 
the famous ride that its maker took, 
which was the precursor of the war in 
which General Knox won his renown: 



General Henry Knox 



.V 



"The fate <>; si nation was riding that night. 
And the spark struck out by that steed in his 

flight 
Kindled the land into flame with ilra heat." 

Finally, I would have the bell ring 
loudest, clearest and longest upon July 
25, the birthday of him who paid its 



maker for its making, who was one of 
the greatest of the Revolutionary 
heroes, and who is dear to us, as no 
other of them can be, because he was, 
and, being immortal, is, our own Gen- 
eral Knox. 



AFTERWARD 



After the publication of the foregoing 
in the Courier-Gazette, Mrs. Fowler, 
who had read it, sent me a copy from 
a paper in her possession, as she said, 
"In my grandmother's [Mrs. Thatch- 
er's] unmistakable handwriting, which, 
I think, affords a strong presumption 
that Louis Philippe did not visit Mont- 
pelier." She states that this paper is 
part of the copy which Mrs. Thatcher 
preserved of a statement which she 
made at the request of Mrs. Ellett, who 
wrote a book entitled Famous Women, 
Mrs. Knox being one of the characters 
treated. Mrs. Fowler says that she has 
a copy of a letter which was written by 
Mrs. Thatcher to her son, in which Mrs. 
Thatcher says that Mrs. Ellett had ask- 
ed her for reminiscences, and had ex- 
pressed regrets that she had made mis- 
statements and had promised to correct 
them in later editions. This statement 
was undoubtedly written in answer to 
that request and after the publication 
of the first edition of that work, as it 
commences — "Your communication, my 
dear madam, enclosing the new me- 
moir of my mother," etc. A part of the 
paper has been lost which explains the 
abrupt ending of the reference to the 
Orleans princes, which is as follows: 



"It is well known that Louis Philippe 
was also a temporary resident in our 
country, and during his sojourn here, 
he and his two younger brothers were 
frequent visitors at my father's in Bos- 
ton. 

"He was at that time an interesting 
young man, interesting in himself, but 
far more so from his peculiar situation. 

"His father was decidedly the richest 
man in France, perhaps in Europe, yet 
these sons were cast upon our shores 
without the means of supplying their 
actual wants, and Louis Philippe him- 
self was compelled to employ his tal- 
ents in teaching to minister to his 
necessities. 

"The conduct of these young men in 
their adversity was extremely credit- 
able to them. They had been hurled 
from a high elevation and no doubt felt 
it keenly, but it was the situation of 
their mother and sister to whom they 
were strongly attached that weighed 
most heavily on their spirits. They 
were still in the power of the Jacobins 
of Paris and they trembled for their 
fate. 

"Never shall I forget the delight ex- 
pressed in their countenances when 
they came one day to dine at my fath- 



3 3 



General Henry Knox 



er's — tore the trholored lace cockades 
which they had hitherto worn from 
their hats and trampled them under 
their feet, saying that they had just 
learned the escape of these beloved 
relatives into Spain and should 
now * * *" 

I had not supposed that Gen. Knox 
had a house in Boston, after he re- 
moved to Thomaston, but it occurred to 
me, upon reading the above, that if he 
had such a house in 1797, Eaton might 
have misunderstood Mrs. Thatcher's 
reference to a visit made at that house 
to one made at Montpelier. I accord- 
ingly wrote to Mrs. Fowler, asking if 
she had any knowledge upon that point. 
In reply to that question she wrote: 

"I have lying before me two letters 
from General to Mrs. Knox, addressed 
to her at 16 Franklin Place, Boston, 
both written in August, 1797. Knox 
was in Maine, but expressed the hope 
of being soon united to his family, and 
said that imperative engagements 
would compel him to be in Boston by 
the 10th or 15th of September." 

I think the foregoing makes it prob- 
able that a mistake was made by 
Eaton, and perpetuated by Knox's bi- 
ographers as to the place at which 
Louis Philippe was Gen. Knox's guest. 
It does not follow that a similar mis- 
take was made as to where the General 
entertained Talleyrand, but if he had a 
house in Boston, at that time, when- 
ever it was, such may have been the 
fact. 

Mrs. Fowler's letter mentioned that 
the remainder of the paper contained a 
reference to her grandmother's meeting 
with La Fayette upon his last visit to 
America, in 1825. Thinking that this 
would be of much interest to all who 
cherish the Knox traditions, I request- 
ed her to send me a copy of that part 



also, with which request she kindly 
complied. It is as follows: 

"With the career for instance of our 
Country's friend and benefactor La 
Fayette she [Mrs. Knox] was conver- 
sant from its commencement and al- 
though history has preserved all of the 
prominent events of his life and traits 
of his character yet there were doubt- 
less many minutiae relative to both, 
which could only be known by those in 
the habit of frequent intercourse with 
him. With respect to this interesting 
man I can testify to the strong regret 
he expressed during his last visit to our 
Country that he could not have had the 
satisfaction of renewing his acquaint- 
ance with my mother who had been re- 
moved to another world the year pre- 
vious to his visit. 

"It was to me a great satisfaction to 
converse with him of my parents and 
to listen to his expressions of interest 
in those so dear to me. The memory 
of this man was wonderful. It would 
seem that he never forgot any person 
or event that had occurred in his long 
life. He even recollected my name and 
having seen me as a child during the 
year succeeding the war when he vis- 
ited the Country and found my parents 
residing in Boston. He reminded me 
of his having on a former visit officiated 
as godfather to my brother under some- 
what peculiar circumstances, himself 
being a Roman Catholic, Gen'l Green 
the other godfather having been a 
Quaker, my mother being an Episco- 
palian and my father a Presbyterian. 
This variety of denominations combined 
in the ceremony had I suppose im- 
pressed it on his mind. I told him it 
would be happy indeed if Christians 
were always thus united. This same 
brother also visited him in Portland 
and we were both received, for our pa- 



General Henry Knox 



33 



rents' sakes.with a warmth of affection 
most gratifying to our hearts. I asked 
him on this occasion if he was not 
wearied with the perpetual motion in 
which they kept him. 'Oh, no,' said 
he, 'my mind is so happy,' laying his 
hand on his heart, 'that I am uncon- 
scious of fatigue," and truly never had 
man more cause to be gratified with the 
spontaneous homage of a Nation, an 
homage so evidently from the heart 
that its sincerity could not be for a mo- 
ment doubted. It seemed to refute the 
oft repeated assertion that Republics 
have no gratitude. He told me during 
this interview that it was his wish and 
intention to return and finish his days 
among us — but a different destiny 
awaited him; his public services were 
not yet terminated and he believed him- 
self to be conferring a blessing on his 
native land in placing over them a 
citizen king. If the result disappointed 
his expectations his conduct was none 
the less true and patriotic. Although 
he may have erred in judgment the dis- 
interestedness of his motives can hard- 
ly be questioned. He will be found I 
think throughout his career to have 
been actuated by a sincere love of lib- 
erty and a desire to promote the best 
good of his fellow creatures." 

In the letter in which Mrs. Fowler en- 
closed the foregoing she says — "I am 
quite sure that I have in my possession 
a letter from Mrs. Thatcher to her son, 
Henry, in which she writes of going 
with her husband from Maine to Bos- 
ton on purposes to greet La Fayette, 
but I am unable now to find the letter." 
It seems probable, therefore, that Mrs. 
Thatcher met La Fayette, at this time, 
in Boston, and that her brother, Hen- 
ry Jackson Knox, met him in Portland. 

I am sure that these extracts from 
Mrs. Thatcher's pen will be valued for 



the interest of the subject matter, and 
also as the expression of one who lived 
in this locality within the memory of 
many still living, and who perhaps to 
a larger extent than any other person 
who was ever resident hereabout, had 
been privileged to meet on familiar 
terms personages who cast great fig- 
ures upon the screen of history. Not 
written for publication, but only to 
supply data for another's use, they are 
alike admirable in spirit and expres- 
sion, and go to show that the high tri- 
bute of Mrs. Woodhull was worthily 
paid. The concluding paragraph is of 
interest, too, in showing that Mrs. 
Thatcher had followed the career of 
him whom she had first known when 
she was a young lady and he an exiled 
prince, and that, now that his eventful 
career had led him to the thron? of his 
ancestors, she was disappointed in the 
way he was filling it. 

I close with another brief quotation 
from Mrs. Fowler's letter: 

"I will mention a matter which is of 
no great consequence to the world at 
large, but which is of interest to me. It 
would seem from Mr. Brooks that the 
connection between my family and 
John Knox was not perfectly known 
but to be presumed from their coming 
from the same part of Scotland. I have 
a genealogical table which gives every 
link in the chain between me and the 
father of John Knox." 

Carlyle's wide reading, keen discrim- 
ination, careful thought and sturdy 
honesty made him a competent judge 
of reputations, and when he set him- 
self to the task of selecting a choice 
company of the world's greatest heroes, 
it was John Knox whom he took as the 
representative of his own country, say- 
ing of him: * * * "himself a brave and 
remarkable man, but still more impor- 



34 



General Henry Knox 



tant as chief priest and founder, which 
one may consider him to be.of the faith 
that became Scotland's, New Eng- 
land's, Oliver Cromwell's. * * * Scotch 
literature and thought, Scotch indus- 
try; James Watt, David Hume, Walter 
Siott, Robert Burns; I find Knox and 
the Reformation acting in the heart's 
core of every one of these persons and 
phenomena; I And that without the 
Reformation they would not have been. 
* * * He is the one Scotchman to 



whom, of all others, his country and 
the world owe a debt." 

Has not the great-granddaughter of 
Henry Knox the right to be proud that 
she can trace a line of descent through 
the American patriot to the father of 
the Scotch reformer, and may not we 
who by virtue of our inheritance in the 
land where Henry Knox lived and 
which he loved have an interest in his 
name and fame, appropriate a little 
share of pride in the line of his de- 
scent? 



